The Final Step.

As the final count down starts for your year long hard training for marathon, here is some of the important information which will provide to achieve your best. Information given is reference from the best source available from the “Sports Nutrition” by Nancy Clark’s, Stretching source is from ACE IFT, and my own experience in Martial Art, .

A) Nine Steps Carbohydrate Loading Plan : Myth : carboloading is stuffing with stuff like Pasta, and other things, that many Marathoner make mistake that hurt their performance.

1) Carbohydrate Load Daily : Daily diet should be carbohydrate base and (MUST) balance with adequate Protein and healthful Fat.(6 to 10 g per body weight in kg.) one should be particular about this last week for race day , devide your target grams of carbohydrate in to three part of the day.

Again keep in mind that “If some carbohydrate is good then more will be better” does not hold true for carbohydrate loading. If you will too much in this tapering or reduced exercise intensity level then you will likely experience intenstinal distress, and your muscle will not better fueled then if you did eaten as adequate amount (Rauch et al. 1995) . that most marathon runner make mistake, stuffing them self the night before for the race day and felt heavy and bloated in race.

2) Taper : the most interesting and misconception word. Just forget any plan for last minute training sprees. As we all know that hard training build us up , then it also tear us down and we need time to heal any damage that occur during training and to completely refuel with carbohydrate.some research suggest that redusing your exercise time to 30% of the normal you can perform very little, short intense speed interval will keep you sharp, ( do not perform any intense exercise after Thursday).

Correct tapering requires tremendous mental discipline and control. Research suggest that 10 to 13 days taper is better then 7 days taper.

Because of you are execising less during the prevent taper , you do not need to eat hundreds of additional calories when loading carbohydrate. Simply maintain your standard intake (eg: 6 to 10 gm / kg body weight.) you will know you have carbohydrate loading properly if you gain 1 / 2 kg of water weight. With each 30 G of stored glycogen , you store about 90 ml of water. This water becomes available during exercise and reduce dehydration.

3) Eat enough Protein : Endurance athelets also burn some protein for energy they should take special care to take two small serving every day of protein rich food in addition to getting protein from two or three dairy serving. Even when carbohydrate loading, your diet should include about 1.3 to 1.6 G per kg body weight.

And have more carbohydrate rich food then fat base food, by this way your muscle , liver and blood glucose will replenish.

Muscle Glycogen

1400 Calories

Liver Glycogen

320 Calories

Blood Glucose

80 Calories

Total

1,800 Calories

5) Choose Fiber rich food : Will promote regular bowel movements and keep your system running smoothly.eg: Whole wheat roti, Bread ,Oatmeal, Fruits, Vegetable are some good choices. If you Carbohydrate load too much on white bread ,Pasta, Rice (polished) and other refined product , you are likely to becomes constipated, particularly if you are doing less training.

6) Plan Meal Times Carefully : NYC marathon queen Grete Waitz once said she never ate a very big meal the night before a marathon because it usually would give her trouble the next day. She prefer to eat bigger Lunch ( which I followed last year) you too, might find the pattern works well for your intenstinal track . that is , instead of relying on a huge Pasta dinner the night before the event. (which normaly we do or prefer to have with friends or at home) , this early meal allow plenty of time for food to move through the system and the stress of fretting about portable toilets. It also help you to get sleep better.this works wonder for me. And if you are a traveling from out station you will be able to more easily get a table at a restaurant that might be overcrowded at dinner time. Also you can start replenishing your carbo intake

Before two days to avoid this situation ( The Glycogen stays in your muscle until you exercise). But don’t overload it and one must be expertise in balancing the diet plan.

7) Drink Extra Fluids : care to be taken to avoid synthetic drink and rely on Water and fresh juice. Must avoid too much Beer , wine, or alcoholic beverages, The Urin should be pale yellow in last three days.

Drink 2/3 glass of water before 2 hours to allow plenty of time to excrete the excess.then another cup or two before 10 minutes the race.

8) Selection of carbohydrate loading : Be sensible about what you eat for carbohydrate loading.

Women, as compare to men, reports more GI problems, particularly at the time of the menstrual period, the hormonal shift that occur during menstruation can contributes to looser bowel movements. There hormonal changes can result in food traveling faster through the digestive system and explain why some people experience GI problems regardless of what they eat.(Ref: Sports Nutrition)

a) Do not rely on Fruit Only …………………………. You are likely to get diarrhea.

9) Eat Breakfast on event day. : Eating enough breakfast before the endurance event is very important, it will prevent hunger and help to maintain blood sugar level, it helps to prevent hypoglycemia (low Blood sugar)

STRETCHING :

Two times per day with very gentle stretching for whole body will help to align all muscle group in this tapering stage.

Eg: Repeat every stretching for 15 second to 1 minutes as per your comfort level. Minimum 5 set is required.